Dragon's Treasure (34 page)

"I win!"

"Not yet," said Karadur. He slid onto the bench opposite Olav, "I challenge you." He raised his right arm and wiggled his fingers.

The shouts and laughter died. Men glanced sideways at one another. Olav was a big man; nearly as tall as the dragon-lord, and with shoulders as broad. But they all knew Dragon's strength. Gamely, Olav sat, and lifted his tired right arm.

"As my lord wishes."

Azil leaned to whisper in the dragon-lord's ear. Dragon nodded.

"The singer suggests I accept a handicap," he said. "Your two arms, against my one, and the left one at that. Does that seem more equitable to you?" He cocked his head at Olav.

"Done!"

The men yelled and ranged themselves around the table. The folk from the kitchen crowded forward to see. "Ale!" Karadur commanded. Half a dozen men held out mugs. He drained two of them.

"Count for us," he said to Azil.

Olav clasped his right hand around his own left wrist. Dragon's huge hand closed around Olav's fingers. Azil chanted, and half the hall with him.
"Nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one... Go!"

The contest went on longer than anyone thought was possible. Olav's broad face purpled, and the veins stood out so on his forehead that more than one man wondered if they might burst. Karadur did not redden, though the sweat leaped on his brow, as on Olav's. But his arm, despite Olav's pressure, did not waver from the vertical. Finally, shoulder swelling beneath his shirt, he forced both of the axman's arms to the table. Olav slumped. The soldiers, shouting, flung the contents of their mugs, drenching both men.

Laughing, Karadur rose. He wrapped a long arm around Azil Aumson's shoulders.

"Give us some music!"

The soldiers shouted their approval. Azil beckoned. Juni Talvela came forward with the rosewood harp in his hands. Azil sang "The Red Boar of Aidu," and the soldiers stamped and yelled the chorus, until the hounds rose barking from beneath the tables.

When it ended, the soldiers shouted for more. Karadur, rising, gestured them to be still. The tumult diminished. The torches flared in their iron holders.

Karadur said, "Rogys."

The redhead rose from his seat. "My lord."

"Dragon Keep's cavalry needs a captain. Will you take the post?"

"My lord, you do me honor."

"You may choose your own lieutenant." The dragon-lord looked across the hall. "Taran Unamira. Come here."

The dragon-lord's shirt was wet with ale, and his skin shimmered faintly gold. The glow came from him, not from the torchlight. As always, when one drew close to him, the size of him shocked the senses.

"We made a bargain, a year ago. You promised to serve me faithfully for a year. I promised that if you did so, that when it ended I would give you a sword, and let you go." He beckoned. Edruyn, holding a sword, stepped softly from the shadows. He gave it to the dragon-lord. Karadur drew the blade from the scabbard and spun it singing with a twist of his wrist. "It's a Chuyo blade," he said. "Very sharp." Light shimmered on the steel. "It came from Dragon Keep's hoard. Some forgotten warrior carried it into battle." He thrust the sword back into the scabbard and held it out. "Take it."

Taran hesitated.

"Take it!"

He took it. He held it a moment, feeling its weight and balance. It was a lovely sword. The elegant hilt shone as if it had been newly worked. The scabbard was carved with vine leaves. The beauty of it made his throat ache.

He said, "My lord, I can't take this blade."

The soldiers murmured.

Karadur said, "Why not?"

He tried to smile. "It's too good for me. I'm a thief, an outlaw. Everyone who sees me with it will think I stole it."

Karadur said, "You were a thief and an outlaw. What you are now we will see. Take the sword, Taran. It's yours; I give it to you. You are free. You can take it, and walk out my gate."

His blue gaze sharpened. "Or—if you choose—you can stay at Dragon Keep and fight for me."

The stones of the Keep seemed to shift beneath his feet.

He could refuse. He could walk through the courtyard, and out the castle gate. He could change his name, and sell himself to someone, some merchant or petty lord, who might hire a one-armed mercenary to guard a warehouse, or a brothel, or to collect taxes. He could learn to drink wine again; as, surely, he would. He could remain solitary, without comrades or kin or history, never trusted, never trusting, lest someone, employer, lover, friend, learn that he had once been Treion the Bastard, the man who burned Castella.... Or he could stay at Dragon Keep.

"Make your choice," Karadur said.

Dragon sleeping, Dragon wakes, Dragon holds what Dragon takes.
... The dragon-wraith emerged suddenly from the wall. Its silver eyes gleamed at him.

He said, "What must I do?"

Karadur said, "You must swear to me."

"Here? Now?"

"Now and forever."

Shaking, he knelt on the hard stone. Karadur's palms settled on his shoulders. The heat of them burned through the cloth.

"Do you know the words?" the dragon-lord said. He shook his head. "Azil. Help him."

The singer's beautiful voice said, "Speak after me.
I
,
Treion Unamira, called Taran One-arm, swear fealty to Karadur Atani, lord of Dragon Keep."

"I, Treion Unamira, called Taran One-arm, swear fealty to Karadur Atani, lord of Dragon Keep."

"At your bidding I will come and go."

"At your bidding I will come and go: my knife to your hand, in war and peace, in speech and silence, until you release me, or my life fails, or the world ends."

Karadur's powerful fingers tightened. "I, Karadur Atani, receive this service. As it is offered, so it shall be returned: fidelity with love, courage with honor, oath-breaking with death."

Lifting his hands, he stepped back.

18

On Coll's Ridge, a badger had taken up residence in the hollow log.

It was a big badger, squat and powerful, with shovel-like claws, and a wide white stripe running from the top of its head to its nose. Shem could feel it, and he could smell it. It smelled like a skunk. It was there now, curled in a ball, and dreaming inchoately of food. It often dreamed of food. It ate ground squirrels, and snakes, and frogs, and mice. He was not sure, but he thought it was a male, because it had no babies. The bees had swarmed in August. The badger had come soon after. He had been worried, when first it came, that Morga would harry it; badgers, Cuillan told him, were fearless, and even dogs used to bigger prey could be badly torn by a badger's claws. But Morga evidently knew that; she was not the least interested in the badger, certainly not today. She lay beside him in the tall grass on her back, paws limp, belly exposed.

It was Morga who had first given away his hiding place.

He had feared when first Maia had found him, hidden beside the boulder on the slope, that she would not allow him to stay. But she had. More than that; she told him he could come to visit her whenever he liked.

"You shouldn't say that. You don't know who I am," he said. "I could be an outlaw."

"Morga would not have made friends with you if you were an outlaw."

And that of course, was true.

She had heard his name before, Maia told him. Even at that first meeting she had seemed to know a lot about him. She knew that he lived at the Keep, that he was a wolf- changeling, and that his mother and father were both dead.

"Do you miss them?" she asked him.

The question had given him a strange feeling in the pit of his stomach.

"Sometimes," he said.

She said, "My mother died four years ago. I miss her very much."

"Is your father dead, too?"

"Yes," she said. "Never mind that. Come and meet my milch goat."

The milch goat's name was Joella. She lived in a pen behind the house. She had no horns. She was brown and white, and her long fine hair was very soft, almost as soft as a cat's. She was very friendly. She liked to be rubbed on top of her nose.

"Where's her kid?" he asked.

"At my neighbor's farm. He is almost grown."

A small brown hare peered from behind a clump of rushes. Shem whispered, "Morga. Rabbit." She did not wake, but her paws twitched. He gazed down the hillside. It was covered with spiky purple fireweed; it was a perfect place for a small boy to hide, undetected. Finches skittered through the grass.

The woman with the red hair was leaving the cottage, basket on her arm. Maia stood at the gate to watch her leave. Then she looked up the slope of the hill, and waved. She was wearing her blue gown, and her hair fell loose past her shoulders. Shem thought she was beautiful.

"Dog," Shem whispered. "Wake up, dog."

Morga opened her eyes, sneezed, and rolled to her feet. Side by side they loped down the hill.

"Hello," Maia said. She smiled and trailed her fingers through his hair. He liked it. "There's bread and honey and milk in the cottage. Do you want some?"

He did, of course. Maia's cottage was not like any other place he knew. It smelled wonderful. Dried herbs dangled from the ceiling. It was rather like what he imagined a witch's house would be, but Maia was not a hedge-witch, but an herbalist. She made teas and potions and ointments. He was not the only person from the Keep to visit her. Taran One-arm came. So did Bryony Maw.

So did Dragon. Shem had not told anyone in the castle that he had seen Dragon visiting the herbalist who lived on the ridge, but people knew.

"Who was that lady?" he asked around a mouthful of bread. "The red-haired one."

"Her name is Graciela Parisi."

"What did she want?"

"A tea for headache, and to talk."

"What does she talk about?"

"She tells me what is happening in Castria."

"What did she tell you?"

"Many things. Let's see if I can remember some of them. Sinnea Ohair has had her baby at last: a boy. They named him Conal." He listened, not to the words, though he heard them, but to the cadence of her voice, which reminded him of something he had loved. "The red mare at Amdur farm foaled last week. That's uncommon, so late in the year. They were up all night delivering her. Now, you tell me the news from the Keep."

So he told her that Beryl Gavrinson, wife to Marek Gavrinson, mother of his best friend Devin, was pregnant, and that Juni Talvela had learned to play "The Red Boar of Aidu," and that Taran One-arm had sworn fealty to Dragon. He was training with the war band, wearing a dagger, not a sword; training with a throwing spear, and sleeping in the barracks with the soldiers.

"Yes," she said, "I heard that. When is Beryl's baby to be born?"

"Sometime around New Year's Moon. He's big enough to kick now. I felt him."

"How many children does she have?"

"Brian, Devin, Mira, Elise... Four. There was another, she told me, but it died. But this one is strong."

"How do you know?"

"Beryl says so. And I can feel it."

He had felt it from the beginning, like a little piece of warmth inside her. He had not, at first, known what it was. At first it had seemed fragile and tiny, smaller than a seed. But now it was bigger, more solid. There was a seed inside Maia, too. It was different from the being inside Beryl: it was smaller, and fiercer. It glowed, like an ember in the darkness. He thought perhaps Maia did not know it was there.

He stayed a little longer with her. Then Arafel, from the Halleck steading, came to get a potion to stop her mother's cough. So he left. Maia gave him a carrot to give to Bella. He fed it to her. She blew bits of it back at him affectionately. He unlaced her reins from the birch tree. He had to use a stump to mount, but he was used to that.

He stopped at the well in Castria for water. The hills, which had been green all summer, were yellow and crimson and brown. The tock, tock sound of the woodcutters' axes echoed through the forest. The first time he had come this way, with Hawk, on Lily, he had thought it a long, wearisome ride. But now it did not seem long to him at all.

He rode through the trees and out again to an open meadow. Mice scurried through the stubby brown grass. A fearful grouse fluttered up from its nest. Its mate followed, squawking,
Hunter, hunter!
He looked up, expecting to see the shape of a falcon or hawk, but the white wide sky was empty.

Suddenly, a human figure rose up out of the burnt grass. Bella shied violently. Shem clamped his legs hard on her ribs. "Easy!" She danced, and finally quieted. He patted her neck. "It's all right," he told her.

The stranger's eyes were yellow as sunflower; she wore leather breeches and a pale shirt, and a jerkin, and tall boots. Her tawny hair gleamed at the tips, as though it had been dipped in molten silver. She smelled of cinnamon and new green grass, and something else, something subtle and unfamiliar.... She wore a small knife at her right hip, no sword, no bow. He wondered where her horse was. Perhaps it had thrown her, and run into the hills. Or perhaps she had none.